Yes, it's as bad as we expected. This particular paragraph illustrates everything that is wrong with what Microsoft is doing: "Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once." Yes, with this, Microsoft and publishers are destroying the ability to sell your games on Ebay or similar sites (because of the 30-day requirement). To make matters worse, the ability to sell or even loan games to your friends can be disabled by publishers. Asinine.

See, the problem is, I am pretty sure Microsoft is one of the major publishers of games for the Xbox brand of gaming consoles... they themselves can gain a lot from this. They're just a bunch of slimy, crooked bastards.

So far we had a dual model which worked well:
- You could "buy" and "own" games on consoles
- You'd "license" games on the PC

This was acceptable, because although console games were more expensive, you could trade/rent/resell them. And while PC games were locked in, they were much cheaper (thanks to Steam, GoG, and Humble Bundles) - some of them were DRM free.

Next gen consoles are merging the worst aspects of the two worlds (I'm afraid PS4 might be similar). The games are locked and expensive.

The effect would be just cannibalizing themselves. I'm pretty sure people will continue to buy this stuff due to Call of Duty (or whatnot) addiction, however they will lose a significant portion of "core" customers (including myself). They are pretty much shortsighted, repeating the pattern where everybody cloned WoW or farmville and failed.

And four years from now a new xbox will come. And microsoft will pull the plug from there servers for the than old xbox one.
This means all your games will not be playable and the xbox one and all the games you bought for it will be useless. Xbox one is a big scam!!

Microsoft could come out with the Xbox 2 in 10 years and then shut the servers down. Why wouldn't they? Because they care about gamers? Is that why they created this stupid system that no gamer wants?

They haven't even announced any games yet and most the gaming world wants nothing to do with it. You have to sell a new console with new features, not by taking away features that have existed in consoles for decades.

The underlying problem is that Microsoft is ran by idiots. Ballmer is an idiot and has stacked the deck with slimy idiots that don't play video games and view the world as one where customers are sheep that need to be sheered. The idea of increasing profits by adding value to a product is beyond them.

I can provide excerpts from the latest partner emails and also some old ones like how I should attend Silverlight conventions because it is the future.

Anyways only a company of idiots would hire people to do forum p.r. work on Reddit instead of (GASP) making a better product. A company of idiots and all we can hope with the Xbox one is that it is used by an activist shareholder as yet another example of why Ballmer is an idiot who has no business running Microsoft. The dorm buddy of Bill Gates needs to go.

I'm always surprised that anybody would buy any of these games new at those ridiculous prices, but if they didn't, I could not then buy the used versions. I guess all good things must come to an end. Thank you all you people with more money than sense for making it possible over the years.

I'm surprised people go see the latest Die Hard in theaters but I'm not going to project my own values on them. For some people I'm sure paying to see it in the theater was worth every penny and made their weekend. It has nothing to do with sense, it's all relative.

I can easily drop $60 taking my woman out for dinner and drinks so in that regard a $60 game has good value because it lasts more than one night. But neither feels like a waste of money because they are both activities I enjoy.

Sure I could wait a few months and get the game at a cheaper price but I wouldn't enjoy my hobby as much. I like being able to just buy the game I want and not spend anytime waiting or looking for a bargain.

I'm not sure the movie comparison works. You can see one of those for $8 or so. Or buy the dvd for $20. Or watch it on Netflix for cheaper that that. We're talking about $50-60 for a game you could easily be tired of in a week. And really what is the excuse for a game costing more than a movie anyway?

But you folks who have money to throw around should definitely do just that because the economy needs all the stimulation it can get.